1. Cover Sheet Project Information Project Title Tehama Shasta Glenn Colusa Forest Health Watershed Coordinator Program Location (County and/or City) Tehama, Shasta, Glenn,Colusa County Senate: District 1 and District 4 District Number(s): Assembly: District 1, District 3, and District 4 Watershed Coordinator Zone Sierra Nevada + Cascade Target Watershed(s) (HUC 10 18020112, 18020005, 18020004, 18020003, 18020118, 18020119, 18020116, and/or HUC 8) 18020115, 18020114, 18020113 Grant Request Amount $184,880.91 Watershed Coordinator Costs $ 154,413.50 Administrative Costs $ 30,467.42 Applicant Information Applicant Name RCD of Tehama County Organization Type Special District Department/Office N/A Federal Employer ID Number 68-0142292 2 Sutter Rd Suite D Mailing Address Red Bluff, CA 96080 Contact Person Jonathan Barrett Title Project Manager Phone Number (530)737-5191 Email Address [email protected] 1 Resource Conservation District of Tehama County Sierra Nevada Cascade 2. Executive summary The primary goal of the Tehama Shasta Glenn Colusa Forest Health Watershed Coordinator Program is to coordinate, expand upon and leverage extensive in place, in process and currently proposed forest health, carbon sequestration, and watershed improvement efforts within four forested counties located within the north Sacramento Valley. In addition, this project seeks to expand already successful long term collaborations within this portion of the North State area, including a formal Collaborative Memorandum of Understanding among the four participating Resource Conservation Districts (RCD) (Colusa and Glenn County RCDs, RCD of Tehama County and Western Shasta RCD). The project area includes a large portion of the Sierra and Cascade Coordinator Zone located in Tehama and Shasta County. It also includes a significant area within the North Coast portion of the North and Central Coast Watershed Coordinator Zone located east of the range’s summit within Shasta, Tehama, Glenn and Colusa County (See Watershed Map). Each of the counties involved in this initiative have completed detailed watershed assessments and management plans, Community Wildfire Protection Plans (Colusa County currently has funding to complete one) along with other resource assessment and planning documents. These planning and assessment documents address local forest health and wildland fire issues and provide recommendations for project work or other implementation efforts that will improve current conditions. In addition, these planning documents were prepared in a manner that maximized public input. As a result, significant community input has already been incorporated into the implementation efforts that are currently being developed or proposed for completion by the participating RCDs, state and federal entities as well as non- government resource groups. As a result of these past efforts, local partners are expecting to keep ahead of ongoing extensive tree mortality that appears to be expanding into the North State from the Central Sierra area region. After many years of discussion and collaboration, these groups are largely in agreement on the general actions necessary to improve current conditions within the four county area. These include: • Expanding and improving current fire/fuels management, fire ecology and other forest health efforts on public and private timberlands through the development of state, federal and private funding sources. As proposed, these efforts are expected to enhance forest health, resilience to climate change and the long-term sequestration and storage potential of carbon. • Increasing the protection of forests within the four county area primarily from catastrophic wildfire. Due to the general undeveloped nature of the project area’s forestlands, wildfire is considered the most significant threat to the maintenance of a stable forest land base within this portion of the North State as compared to land use conversion. • Providing an opportunity for collaborators to better prioritize and leverage each County’s implementation efforts in a manner that meets the goals and intention of the Forest Carbon Plan. The watershed coordinator would continue and expand many of the forest health initiatives developed by the participating RCDs over the past 10 years. Through the centralization of efforts to develop funding applications and specific work scopes as agreed upon by each participating RCD, it is anticipated that the ability of these organizations to obtain necessary project dollars to implement landscape scale projects will be greatly improved. In addition, the watershed coordinator would coordinate local activities with regional prioritization sub groups of the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force. The RCDTC has determined that the overall Tehama Shasta Glenn Colusa Forest Health Watershed Coordinator Program is statutorily exempt under the CEQA regulations in that “A project involving only feasibility or planning studies for possible future actions which the agency, board, or commission has not approved, adopted, or funded does not require the preparation of an EIR or Negative 2 Resource Conservation District of Tehama County Sierra Nevada Cascade Declaration but does require consideration of environmental factors. This section does not apply to the adoption of a plan that will have a legally binding effect on later activities.” 3. Application Questions a. Describe how the watershed encompasses forest lands with characteristics and indicators prioritized by the Forest Carbon Plan: . Forests projected to be at risk due to climatically driven stressors. The forested counties included in the Tehama Shasta Glenn Colusa Forest Health Watershed Coordinator Program (Program) project area contain approximately 3,278,000 acres of public and private forestlands. At the present time tree mortality rates within the North Sierra and Southern Cascades area are lower than those found in the Central and Southern Sierras. Surveys and related tree mortality mapping conducted by the US Forest Service (USFS), Cal Fire, and the Tree Mortality Task Force (TMTF) between 2012 and 2017 however, show an increased rate in drought related mortality within the mixed conifer forests found in the four-county project area, particularly those at lower elevations. More specifically, mapping prepared by the TMTF indicates that mortality rates have been rising within eastern Tehama County and Eastern Shasta County particularly within the 5- 15 and 15-40 dead trees per acre categories. That portion of the South Coast Range within Shasta, Tehama, Glenn and Colusa Counties was shown to have significantly increased rates of tree mortality as well. As of March 2016, total tree mortality on large publicly managed land within the four county project area was as follows: Total Acres Total Dead Trees Land Management Containing Attributable to Unit Drought Related Drought and Tree Motility Related Impacts Lassen National 166,000 831,000 Forest Shasta-Trinity 79,000 571,000 National Forest Mendocino National 79,000 410,000 Forest Lassen Volcanic 12,000 34,000 National Park Whiskeytown National 2,000 6.000 Recreation Area Totals 338,000 1,852,000 *Data per the 2015 Aerial Survey Results: California USDA Forest Health Monitoring Program The widespread perception of increasing risk for large scale tree mortality and forest health decline among land owners and land managers within the project area is reflected in the current level of public and private efforts to stave off the extremely high rates of decline found within the South and Central Sierra areas. The focus areas of the Program are low, mid and upper elevation mixed conifer forestlands located within that portion of eastern Tehama County and Shasta County within the 3 Resource Conservation District of Tehama County Sierra Nevada Cascade northern Sierra and South Cascade Ranges. It also includes lands within western Shasta, Tehama, Glenn and Colusa Counties located within the South Coast Range. References Tree Mortality Viewer, Tree Mortality Task Force, Sacramento, CA Accessed 1-19 and 2-19 2015 Aerial Survey Results: California, USDA Forest Health Monitoring Program. Davis CA March 2015 R5-PR-034 . Forests at greatest risk to high-severity events (e.g., fire, insect outbreak). Due to timber harvest and active vegetation control, counts of trees per acre within large private forestlands inside the project area are generally lower than those on publicly managed forests (National Forests and Bureau of Land Management (BLM)). As a result, these privately held forestlands show lower levels of tree mortality and other health issues. As a result, a primary focus of the Program is increasing the pace and scale of implementation efforts on portions of Lassen National Forest (LNF), Shasta-Trinity National Forest (STNF), and Mendocino National Forest (MNF) lands within the project area, those managed by the National Park Service (Lassen Volcanic National Park (LVNP) and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (WNRA)) along with those under Bureau of Land Management (BLM) control. In addition, this effort seeks to better identify forest health issues on small privately owned forestlands that are interspersed within larger public and private forested areas. Throughout the project area, these smaller forested parcels are often overstocked or otherwise poorly managed due absentee ownership or lack of management funds. Once project needs within these public and private forest parcels were identified, packages of project work and funding